Hospital Operation - away for a while

In large doses it's fatal yes. In smaller doses it was used as a muscle paralyzer, and I do think they'd need some type of contingency for breathing.

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Originally Posted by Moira

Yeah, I've heard of curare, but wouldn't it still require you to have someone artificially breath for you? Curare used to be a poison from what I remember, and would be very effective!

I'm not sure what was used to initially knock me out, but by god it was fast! I had one injection put in the line that was set up into a vein, then something which made my mouth go dry which I remembered from last time, followed by around 2mls of a clear liquid. That's all I remember until someone said "you're in the recovery room", and after that I remember nothing until I was back on the ward. I wasn't even told that what was being injected would put me to sleep! There was no counting to 10 or anything, it seemed instant!

I had a local anaesthetic block which was incredibly effective. It didn't wear off until the following day so I got no pain at all. I'd been a bit worried about this knowing I'd have a high opiate tolerance from my arthritis drugs, but it wasn't a problem. I had morphine piggybacked onto my drip, slowly giving a constant supply and 4 times a day, my arthritis painkillers (methadone), so with this block as well, I was really comfortable. The only pain was, they insisted I breathed in oxygen while I was getting morphine, which I hated.

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Hey Moira, in case you were wondering, the reason that they wanted you doing oxygen mask crap with Morphine is because even though you say you have a tolerance, when you've just had surgery the anesthesia and others don't actually leave your body right away when you wake up, so mixing that + Morphine, can slow your breathing pretty quick, so it was more for your own safety.

There is every chance you'd have been fine without it but in that area, they weren't just annoying you, they were putting your safety first as all Opiates affect respiratory and can in large doses make you stop breathing.

Ummm, the dose to make even a baby stop breathing would be pretty huge but still, it's a precaution. Think of it like wearing a seat belt on the Freeway or highway where you can go really fast, there are less accidents, but when there is one it's generally a bad one.

Anyway though, get well soon and Hope you're not in any pain. God knows I hate being in pain, as should everyone, that's why God made that plant :)

Oh, and, good luck on recovery! The quicker that goes the faster you can be back in the saddle doing what you actually would like to do instead of being forced to lay around.

I know when I screwed my knee up and they said stay in bed for 3 days I was like "You're kidding right? My desktop doesn't reach the bed, I can't play Doom in bed, you damn well better be kidding!".

Then I got a laptop and it was all OK lol.

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Originally Posted by gore

Hey Moira, in case you were wondering, the reason that they wanted you doing oxygen mask crap with Morphine is because even though you say you have a tolerance, when you've just had surgery the anesthesia and others don't actually leave your body right away when you wake up, so mixing that + Morphine, can slow your breathing pretty quick, so it was more for your own safety.

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Ah thanks, I wondered about that :) in fact they would have taken the tolerance into account anyway and possibly upped the morphine and other opiates making oxygen just as necessary a precaution for me as everyone else.

Well, I was very surprised and delighted to be reminded of this thread by a message from d00dz Attackin :) how nice someone still remembers me! Was this honestly my last post? Almost a year ago? :( I need some encouragement to get involved in forum stuff again, it hasn't been an easy year, and at times I couldn't face the internet, then it would get more and more difficult because I knew I'd be facing an ever increasing number of emails, demands, broken blog links to fix etc etc when I came back on. The longer I stayed off IRC the more I'd be mobbed by where were you? every time I went back on and it turned into a vicious circle. I feel a lot better and am back to work now, but ridiculously busy! I've just got back from Helsinki and haven't dared press mIRC yet as I know what will happen, I won't have any peace! I feel guilty abandoning a channel I own and even a small server I help admin as these were commitments, but I just don't have the capacity to cope with anything else wanting a part of me that doesn't exist right now. If you could just sit peacefully in a channel, irc could run in the background - likewise Trillian. But there's always *someone* wanting to query msg a load of non private nothing, which means the system tray flashes until I look at the window, or someone who needs the sort of help channel admins/owners are usually good at providing prodding me until I end up simply engrossed 100% in irc, achieving nothing very much. Oh dear, I make what are supposed to be pleasurable pastimes sound like harsh punishment, don't I? Which reminds me, I also have to go to court on 17th October ... but I don't suppose anyone heard about the car accident? Or the broken ribs? The week of dilirius semi coma? Detox? In fact, you are lucky I didn't stick around. I'd have driven members away by the dozen with grim posts about **life** I've become a technical dunce too, I can't even do bulletin board any more. How the fsuk do you achieve italics and bold? Paragraphs anyone?

I took a year off once. Life got crazy, I didn't have any burning IT problems, wasn't shopping for anything new equipment wise, so the priorities readjusted.

A few "brush fires" put out and back to the forums....

Yeah, I found it just a bit hard to cope with what was becoming an impossible build up. I went back on irc briefly last night and it felt strange at first, but like holidays from work, it doesn't take long to feel like you never went away!

A bit late, but i do hope that everything turns out well for you. :)

Thank you ! I'm sure things will work out, life just needs to get a bit less hectic :(